BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?

Subject: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 10:31 AM

Channeling Rosanne Rosannadanna...

Anyway, surprised nobody's already talking about the death throes of the EU, via the French quite possibly electing the raving lunatic who now, thanks Obama, looks reasonable.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 01:50 PM

Vraiment? Personne ne s'interesse? C'est (probablement) la mort de l'UE, et on s'en fout?

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 02:00 PM

What exactly has Prez Obama supposedly got to do with this?

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 02:22 PM

He left!

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: akenaton
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 04:58 PM

Sorry Mrrzy...I don't get it either .....please explain.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 05:37 PM

I've been watching TV5Monde with horrified fascination.

Marine Le Pen, either a sea-goddess ('Marine', Goddess of the Sea and the most powerful mother goddess) or ultra-fascist inheritor of all the most right-wing of the right, depending on your point of view, is within an ass's roar of getting the presidency of France. This is a woman who last week said that the French bore no blame for the herding of French Jews into the Paris bicycle race stadium and onward to the death camps of Poland in World War II. She is utterly anti-EU and wants France to be über-French for übermensch, with an end to immigration from France's former colonies (unless I'm misunderstanding things, Mrrzy?)

She has come only a couple of points below Emmanuel Macron, "centrist" and darling of the soft right, a Tony Blair clone who wants to cut unemployment while simultaneously sacking 120,000 civil servants (eh? how that work? eh?) and to increase the power of employers against unions, while adding to France's relatively short working hours (which have resulted in quite high productivity, as I understand?)

Gurning in the background is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a traditional leftie who wants to return Europe to its ideals and stop it being a club where the super-rich can get super-richer; the people of France don't seem to have liked that idea - which is understandable seeing the beating Greece got from its supposed EU partners when it elected a genuinely left-wing government. "Voice of the people?" they were told, "Will of the voters? HAHAHAHAHA!"

There's a run-off election in a fortnight (two weeks in American), pitting Le Pen against Macron. Virtually every country in Europe has come out pleading with the people of France to vote for Macron (against normal precedent - European governments don't comment when a country is in the middle of an election run); Le Pen has just upped the ante by stepping back from her party, the National Front, with the idea that (especially young) voters will vote for her, rather than the poisonous party her father founded.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 06:26 PM

Everybody pleaded with us not to elect he who must not be marketed, too, that's what worries me.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 08:27 PM

Marine Le Pen...is within an ass's roar of getting the presidency of France

No she isn't. Eighty per cent of French voters, on a turnout of 78% voted for candidates who are now calling for Macron to be elected.

That's an ass with the roaring abilities of a snail.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 09:49 PM

That's what they said about whosis, too. Calling for isn't voting.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 10:02 PM

Marine is stepping down, that is odd

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 10:13 PM

She's not stepping down, she's working a con.

Let's hope the French voters are more intelligent than U.S. ones.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 10:47 PM

I would nornally think so...

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Allan Conn
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 02:09 AM

With the caution that I know anything can happen there is as yet no massive swing to the NF in France. Sure Le Pen got 21.3% of the First Round vote so secured a place in the final round but the actual swing to her from the last election is not so great. She got 17.9% last time so it is actually only a 3.4% increase in the vote. Let's keep things in perspective.

It is not the first time the NF candidate has reached the 2nd Round so the important thing is how many second round votes will she get? Her father got 16.86% of the First Round vote in 2002 but only managed to increase it to 17.92% in the Second Round. He captured just over 1% more of the vote. His daughter needs to capture another 29% or so!!!

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 02:39 AM

Allan is right....Marine will not win, unless the feminists get their arses into gear :0)

As usual the media and the establishment will make sure the debate is on racism not immigration regulation.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 03:11 AM

"As usual the media and the establishment will make sure the debate is on racism not immigration regulation."
Whence the difference?
Immigration policies are based on xenophobia
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 07:22 AM

What a mess the FRench have got themselves into.....Two candidates no one is very keen on. You can't imagine that happening in America.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 07:27 AM

While we can assume le Pen is mightier than the sordid, and the lesson is 'the march of the far right' in many countries is on the ascendant - she will most likely not get across the line.
But next time?
It took a world war to silence Oswold Mosely, and he didn't shut up after it!

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 07:33 AM

Well Jim, one common example of "liberal fascism" is to categorise anyone who questions the policy of allowing unregulated immigration into one's country as "racism".

You have a whole portfolio of such categorisations which you aim at anyone who dares to contradict your views, or the views of the "liberal" media.

Sometime it does people like you good to be reminded that there are millions, socialist and conservative, who will not accept unreasonable bullshit......because it is deemed politically correct by corrupt politicians or a slavish immoral media.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 08:27 AM

Le Pen, in stepping down, is doing something Irish politicians do all the time when their party has become a poisoned chalice: she's becoming an "independent" or possibly founding a new party. Meanwhile, another of her family is likely to become the head of the nepotistic National Front.

Le Pen is hoping to gain voters who fool themselves and say "Look, she's up for controlling immigration and limiting the power of Europe, goody, and she's not a member of that nasty fascist anti-semitic party, what was it called again?"

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 08:42 AM

"Well Jim, one common example of "liberal fascism" is to categorise anyone who questions the policy of allowing unregulated immigration into one's country as "racism"."
Nope
limiting immigration has been respectibalised by claiming that there is no room, as well as that it is a threat to our way of life
The first has been rejected as not true - the latter is pure racism - and one you have used yourself.
Brexit was won on immigration - immediately following the result the number of racist incidents increased significantly - fact!
You described Muslims as throatcutters and beheaders - that is the type of racism that turns people against people
You claim that refugees should be forced to wear identification - that is racism - or it certainly was when the Jews were forced to do so - even the right-wing press used the comparison when the practice was deemed dangerous.
Your particular portfolio is full of questions that you not only ignore, but you have refused to answer.
Do you know any socialists - you certainly are not one of them (unless you
count National Socialism
You could avoid all this by simply responding to questions head on instead of your somewhat cowardly hit and run technique.
you might start by explaining your one-man definitions
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Stu
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 08:46 AM

"As usual the media and the establishment will make sure the debate is on racism not immigration regulation."

My god, you're not supporting Le Pen are you Ake? What else? Chechen torture of gays? Vichy France? Bilderberg?

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 09:07 AM

La Pen has received millions of dollars from Russia for her campaign.

How she pays them back is not clear.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 09:17 AM

Incidentally Ake
I have never supported "unregulated" immigration nor has anybody else
All immigration is regulated, as it should be
What you people are calling for is that those regulations be tightened to allow us to watch refugee children drown in the sea
Anyway - supposing my accusations of racism are unfair or inaccurate - how does that tie in with any definition of fascism?
Being wrong isn't being a fascist - supporting mass murderers and the behaviour of despots like Trump is fascism
Rascism isn't fascism per se, it is merely one of the weapons fascism uses to maintain supreme power over the people
I call people racists and fascists - one is not dependent on the other in definition
"Marine will not win, unless the feminists get their arses into gear"
Any chance of your explaining this mysoginistic statemnt - you are not widening your target to include women's rights, are you.
What on earth has feminism to do with the possiblity of France having a fascist president?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 10:00 AM

Big Al, yeah, exactly. And I don't think the ridiculous sexism of the Americans is the same in France...

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 11:14 AM

"La Pen has received millions of dollars from Russia for her campaign."
LePen was photographed at Trump Tower shortly after he was elected
It appears that the Brexit domino was only the first one to fall
"How she pays them back is not clear."
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 01:21 PM

British media are now so dominated by fascists that it's nearly impossible to see how anything looks like from where it's happening. Even the Guardian and the BBC are acting as La Penis's PR team.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 02:07 PM

You only have to look at the French yoof mags (http://www.konbini.com/fr/ for instance) to see that Macron is branding herself as 'young', while Macron looks like a bank manager in a suit. She leaps off the page in a vivid red dress… Macron talks seriously about the economy and how he thinks it should be fixed; she talks about France supposedly being subsumed under a flood of Islam…

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 03:36 PM

You mean Marine where you say Macron up there where you use a female pronoun, yes? And he is young, Macron that is.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 04:27 PM

I did. Tired today, sorry.

Macron *is* young, but Marine *brands herself as* young, while he looks like a fusty old codger.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 04:58 PM

Thanks, Mrrzy, for at least making the thread title humorous.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 05:01 PM

Xo

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 07:53 PM

"Even the Guardian and the BBC are acting as La Penis's PR team."
I used to get the Times for the News - now I only get it for Codeword
It has become as viciously right-wing as any of the red-tops
Don't know who the cartoonist is but he makes Garald Scarfe look like chocolate-box art
The jackboots are on the march again
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 03:47 AM

Jackboots in Austria? Geeze! Talk about history repeating itself!
Jackboots in the Netherlands?
How long before they win?
And before we get too spectrum-polarized - Hitler was voted in as a "National Socialist" aka Nazi & Union leader no less. And got Volkswagen started (the Peoples' Car). ie a centrist.

They are everywhere in Europe - always were but more of them are emboldened after 70 years of peace. How many generations don't know the privations of war? I'm one of them, but at least I had a mother to tell me what it was like.

Mind you, we have May running scared in the UK. She is gambling that we don't know what is coming, and what is coming is change. And change costs money - and privation. And we don't know!

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 04:04 AM

What's coming is more than change. Britain was knocking frantically at the door of the EEC to get in when it joined, because being outside a trading bloc of that size was disastrous for its economy.

Now it's leaving that trading bloc, and will have tariffs on its exports; if the pound suffers, its imports will be more expensive too.

I have some sympathy with the English idea that the EU is bossy and not always good for all members - for example, membership of the EU has turned the rich Irish fishing waters into a shared wasteland - but flouncing out in a huff seems a crazy reaction.

As for France - if Macron gains the presidency, he's going to be making every move to a background of criticism from anti-EU nationalists. If he goes ahead with his lunatic plan to sack 120,000 civil servants, I would personally think he will doom France's place in the EU, and possibly the EU itself.

He plans to weaken unions and strengthen employers' legal right to sack, etc; a rictus response, rather than what he should be doing - making an all-out push to turn France into an exporting country.

I was astonished, when in Paris a couple of months back, to look at the shelves on the supermarket Monoprix (nicely priced by electronic name- and price-tags on the shelf so they could be changed with a click of a remote control). Virtually all of the products were made in France, and of excellent quality. Virtually none were available in Ireland - which is a country extremely keen in importing good food products. I went back home and looked at my local Lidl and Aldi shelves; they are creditably high in Irish products, but I'd love to see those good French products there too - most of them wouldn't compete with Irish manufacture.

Why doesn't France export its world-renowned food? Surely that would be the saving of its economy?

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 04:38 AM

Great new term from the election reportage: les quadras-quinquas, for the young middle-aged

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Politique/Qui-sont-les-electeurs-d-Emmanuel-Macron-1241915

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 09:03 AM

Anybody see John Oliver on this?

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 01:03 AM

Loved the John Oliver programme where he pleaded, in mangled French and puffing a Gitane in a Paris-café scene in monochrome, for the French to save western civilisation!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkZir1L7fSY

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 06:59 AM

Ditto on John Oliver. The guy offers an emotional lifesaver in these times.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 10:36 AM

I still miss Jon Stewart, but yeah.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 10:57 AM

And, merde. WashPo gives her a narrow lead.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 04:48 PM

Was watching TV5Monde tonight and they were interviewing lots of country folk, vignerons and the like. My understanding is limited - I hop along behind getting a bit here and a bit there - but as far as I gathered, while the owners were mostly saying they'd vote for Macron because of exporting, the farm workers were saying they'd go for Le Pen - and saying it with the exact same kind of guilty grinning sulk of people who intended to vote for Brexit, a few months ago, as if they were subtitled "That'll larn them!"

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 06:03 PM

And saying it with the exact same kind of guilty grinning sulk of people who voted for Trump.

I'm still hoping that the French, in the aggregate, are smarter than those in the U.S.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 06:53 PM

And, merde. WashPo gives her a narrow lead

No it doesn't - it says there is "a narrow possbility" that she might win, if enough voters stay home.

One thing this election has over elections in the UK and the USA - there is no way that a candidate can win while getting fewer votes than the loser.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 07:21 PM

Right, I was just coming back to correct myself, thanks McG, I had indeed misread.

And, yeah, at least there is that.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 May 17 - 10:36 AM

Refresh for the weekend... all my French friends are saying LePen cannot win, but they are all using the *exact* tone of voice and vocabulary people over said about who wasn't going to win our election, so I am afraid, I am very afraid.

(And that is a reference, for those of you who agree that using the word Very shows poor vocabulary. Terrified would be a better term, but hey, the Addams Family does come to mind these days.)

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 May 17 - 12:01 PM

Sounds as if she shot herself in the foot (pity it wasn't in the head) by accusing Macron of holding offshore accounts - turned out to be more fake news from Moscow, who now seem to think they can decide the result of all elections anywhere
He is suing her - hope he wins
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 May 17 - 02:05 PM

Before Sunday, too.

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Thompson
Date: 06 May 17 - 03:10 AM

Very scary. Hackers (guess who?) have just infodumped a load of Macron campaign emails - remind you of the American election and the dump of Clinton emails?

And the left is trying to make people "vote blanc" and "vote nul" - spoil their votes or not fill out their votes - which could give the presidency to Le Pen by default.

Concentration camp survivors and old people who fought in the French Resistance are coming out and warning frantically what it's like to live under fascism.

What will the French do?

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 May 17 - 03:25 AM

"What will the French do?"
Hopefully learned the lesson that Britain and France haven't
Brexit seems to have succeeded where Hitler failed
Hard to imagine a world run by an axis led May and LePen and Trump but that's what's on offer here - even got Mussolini wannabe Beppo the Clown in Italy
Sad and sick
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: What's all the fuss...French Erections?
From: akenaton
Date: 06 May 17 - 05:49 AM

Its unbelievable! You people always blame the messenger.

The hacked Democratic Party E.mails proved that your system is deeply corrupt but you keep quiet about that fact and blame the hackers for bringing it to light?   Some fucking democrats!!

The same in France, "liberals" turn a blind eye to the content of e.mails and blame the hackers for exposing the corruption at the heart of French politics.

You people are totally shameless.....is there any better example of why I use "liberals"?